Seyran Ateş, controversial founder of an avowedly ‘liberal’, gender-equal mosque in Berlin at which she serves as female Imam, has been faced with disbelief at her most recent comments on the Muslim headscarf. Women’s rights lawyer turned to the religious field Ateş made a name for herself in the 1990s as a lawyer defending women’s…
The elections to the National Council, the lower house of the Austrian Parliament on October 15, have marked a firm shift to the right in Austrian politics, particularly on matters of immigration, integration, and Islam. Sebastian Kurz headed for an ÖVP-FPÖ coalition After an electoral campaign dominated by at times vicious diatribes against Muslims and…
The 16 April 2017, a constitutional referendum in Turkey increased President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s powers. According to the Turkish press agency Anadolu and the news website Ouest France, the Turkish diaspora living in Europe has largely supported Erdogan in their vote. Despite a context of tension between the Turkish President and European governments, the level of…
Reuters | By Shadia Nasralla Austria’s parliament passed a law on Wednesday that seeks to regulate how Islam is administered, singling out its large Muslim minority for treatment not applied to any other religious group. The “Law on Islam” bans foreign funding for Islamic organizations and requires any group claiming to represent Austrian Muslims to…
Since the last few months the amendment of the Austrian Islam law is critically discussed by constitutional lawyers, academics as well as members of the Islamic community. However, according to the daily newspaper standard the minister of foreign affairs Sebastian Kurz and other party members of the ÖVP are willing to discuss key points of…
